Fox News @ Night host Shannon Bream brought on the producers and writers of the anti-abortion movie Gosnell -- days after the White House screened the movie -- to advance an inaccurate and sensationalized right-wing media narrative about abortion providers engaging in so-called “infanticide.”

Fox News promotes Bream and her program as part of[1] its “straight news” division in an effort to reassure[2] wary advertisers[3] to stay the course, despite the frequent xenophobia[4], sexism[5], racism[6], and lies[7] of Fox’s “opinion” side, helmed by Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity. But like her colleague Martha MacCallum[8] -- another host the network inaccurately points to[9] as a supposed counterpoint to the “opinion” side -- Bream has long been a source[10] of anti-abortion misinformation and cannot be used to prop up a facade of objectivity.

During the April 15 edition of Fox News @ Night, Bream facilitated[11] a discussion about abortions conducted later in pregnancy that was dominated by the same sensationalized lies[12] that have defined[13] Fox’s opinion and news [14]coverage[14] since the beginning of the year.

The White House screening of Gosnell on April 12 was another example[15] of Republicans[16]’ and President Donald Trump’s strategy[17] to stoke outrage[18] over Democratic efforts to protect and secure access to abortion later in pregnancy. In recent months, right-wing media[19], and Fox News in particular[20], have gone all-in[13] on promoting outrageous and inaccurate talking points claiming state efforts to protect abortion access were akin to legalizing abortion “up to birth” or even supporting[21] “infanticide.”

Bream’s segment was an unsurprising continuation of this strategy. She allowed the filmmakers to conflate the illegal actions of former abortion provider Kermit Gosnell -- who is currently[22] serving “three life terms in jail” for “first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies born alive at his rogue clinic, then stabbed with scissors” -- with the actions of legitimate abortion providers. During the segment, co-writer Phelim McAleer alleged that "there wasn't that much difference" between what Gosnell did from what a "legal" abortion provider does. As co-writer Ann McElhinney claimed, “The reason we made this film in the first place” was because legal abortion, in her opinion, allows an abortion provider to “neglect a baby to death.”

In reality, Gosnell’s practices are in no way[23] representative of abortion providers or abortion procedures in the United States. As New York magazine’s Irin Carmon wrote[24] in 2013, Gosnell’s actions were not evidence of widespread malfeasance by abortion providers, some of whom attempted[25] to warn about his actions and the condition of his clinics beforehand; rather, it was his "willingness to break the law" that made many patients seek him out, believing “they had no alternative.”

During the segment, Bream pointed to an NBC News article[26] by Robin Marty about the film to allow the filmmakers to explain away “criticisms.” Marty’s article, however, accurately lays out the issues with the film, noting, among other things, that the movie makes an absurd comparison between Gosnell and assassinated legal abortion provider Dr. George Tiller:

To compare an experienced doctor who legally performed third trimester abortions, usually for women victimized by sexual assault or who learned that their child had fatal fetal anomalies, to a man who stabbed live babies in the neck to sever their spinal chords isn’t just disingenuous, it’s disrespectful (and potentially slanderous).

Bream allowed her guests to equate Gosnell’s actions with those of legitimate abortion providers -- and the segment played into right-wing and anti-abortion media's manufactured villainization[27] of abortion providers and those[28] who have[29] abortions.